[Edit: Seems like this idea wasn't a good idea eventually. Thank you for participating.๐]
I've noticed that low turnout (about half) is very common in elections. A good practice would be to make it easier to vote through various means. Another good one, but harder, is to educate people about the importance of voting and generally being an active citizen. I think my idea should be used either if the previous attempts to encourage voting don't work or it could be used in parallel with them.
The idea I had, though I don't know if it's a good one:
If the turnout is less than
100% - "percentage of ruling party"
then elections would be invalidated and they'd have to happen again.
If they get invalidated again, the term of the parliament is extended as-is by a year (this part could be changed, it could be replaced by what the consitution of each country dictates in case elections get invalidated for other reasons). This way it "punishes" people who don't vote (though everyone gets collateral damage..), so eventually people might get fed up and be pushed to vote. Plus, it prevents parties to get power without people actually supporting them.
Even if those "extra" people who will be pushed vote happen to vote the "bad" guys, they will at least know they are actively part of the problem (provided they understand the problem๐ฌ) and might change their vote (to something better or worse).
I think it's very important to have more engagement. In Greece we had a ~50% turnout last year. That's extremely low.. And I see similar percentages in many other countries. Apathy is very damaging to democracy, those two ~don't really get along (though I don't know if it's worse than voting "bad" people).
The reason why I'm excluding the percentage of the ruling party from the whole percentage of the population is because the ruling party may try to "rig" the system by advising all their supporters not to vote, thus, extending their power.
If you could pinpoint any issues to my idea and any way of fixing them would be nice. If you find it a good/bad idea, you're encouraged to share why. It's just something I though of (I think) yesterday.๐
If a minority group is being oppressed or is otherwise motivated to create change and is voting in large numbers, but the majority is apathetic and not bothering to vote, then this system would prevent the minority from changing their representation as "punishment" for something they're not doing.
It's also a bit of a "the beatings will continue until morale improves" solution to the problem, if it even is actually a problem. Low turnout is bad, but not because it's inherently bad not to vote. It's a symptom of the fact that people don't think it matters, or that it will change anything, and unfortunately they're not exactly wrong much of the time. Instead of putting effort into punishing people for not being engaged enough, it'd be better to make systemic changes that empower people and make the government more representative of their interests.
๐
I guess we can probably scrap my idea then๐